Themes: Class Differences, Servants and Employers, Party Film
Main Cast: Nora Gregor, Jean Renoir, Marcel Dalio, Roland Toutain, Paulette Dubost
Release Year: 1939
Country: FR
Run Time: 110 minutes
Plot
Now often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu/Rules of the Game was not warmly received on its original release in 1939: audiences at its opening engagements in Paris were openly hostile, responding to the film with shouts of derision, and distributors cut the movie from 113 minutes to a mere 80. It was banned as morally perilous during the German occupation and the original negative was destroyed during WWII. It wasn't until 1956 that Renoir was able to restore the film to its original length. In retrospect, this reaction seems both puzzling and understandable; at its heart, Rules of the Game is a very moral film about frequently amoral people. A comedy of manners whose wit only occasionally betrays its more serious intentions, it contrasts the romantic entanglements of rich and poor during a weekend at a country estate. André Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a French aviation hero, has fallen in love with Christine de la Chesnaye (Nora Gregor), who is married to wealthy aristocrat Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio). Robert, however, has a mistress of his own, whom he invites to a weekend hunting party at his country home, along with André and his friend Octave (played by Jean Renoir himself). Meanwhile, the hired help have their own game of musical beds going on: a poacher is hired to work as a servant at the estate and immediately makes plans to seduce the gamekeeper's wife, while the gamekeeper recognizes him only as the man who's been trying to steal his rabbits. Among the upper classes, infidelity is not merely accepted but expected; codes are breached not by being unfaithful, but by lacking the courtesy to lie about it in public. The weekend ends in a tragedy that suggests that this way of life may soon be coming to an end. Renoir's witty, acidic screenplay makes none of the characters heroes or villains, and his graceful handling of his cast is well served by his visual style. He tells his story with long, uninterrupted takes using deep focus (cinematographer Jean Bachelet proves a worthy collaborator here), following the action with a subtle rhythm that never calls attention to itself. The sharply-cut hunting sequence makes clear that Renoir avoided more complex editing schemes by choice, believing that long takes created a more lifelike rhythm and reduced the manipulations of over-editing. Rules of the Game uses WWI as an allegory for WWII, and its representation of a vanishing way of life soon became all too true for Renoir himself, who, within a year of the film's release, was forced to leave Europe for the United States.. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Jean Renoir's masterpiece and his last French film before he went to Hollywood, Rules of the Game (1939) is an intricate, tragi-comic indictment of a decadent European culture on the verge of collapse and war. Renoir's innovative "observational" style of long takes, deep focus, and gracefully subtle camera movements relates the characters to their environment and to each other, communicating the complexity of the class-based society seen in microcosm at the film's central country house. Rather than overtly manipulating the viewer's attention and emotional responses, Renoir's style allows the audience to share his ambivalent view of human nature, playing out multiple, metaphorically loaded love triangles among the guests and servants at the estate. Setting up the story around contrasts between tradition and modernity, individual passion and social rules, and nature and culture (revealing the corrupting force of culture in a brutal hunting sequence), Renoir presents a declining society doomed by its intractable conflicts and adherence to superficial manners. In his role as Octave, Renoir literally orchestrates the events but even he, the wise artist, cannot prevent violent tragedy. After provoking a riot at its Paris premiere, Rules of the Game was edited to 80 minutes and finally banned by French censors as "demoralizing"; the Nazis banned it during the Occupation as well. Although the original negative was destroyed in World War II, Rules of the Game was restored under Renoir's supervision to its original length (minus one short scene) in the late 1950s, debuting to great acclaim at the 1959 Venice Film Festival. In this version, Rules of the Game has since come to be considered one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Gaston Modot - Schumacher; Nicolas Amato - South Americain; Julien Carette - Marceau; Henri Cartier-Bresson - English Servant; Tony Corteggiani - Berthelin; Eddy Debray - Corneille; Lise Elina - Radio Reporter; Roger Forster - Effimine invitee; Richard Francoeur - M. La Bruyere; Camille François - Radio Announcer; Claire Gérard - Mme. La Bruyere; Jenny Hélia - Kitchen Servant; Léon Larive - Cuisinier; Pierre Magnier - General; Anne Mayen - Jackie; Pierre Nay - M. de Saint-Aubin; Mila Parély - Genevieve de Marrast; Odette Talazac - Charlotte de la Plante; André Zwoboda - Ingenieur; Antoine Corteggiani - Berthelin, the Huntsman
Credit
Coco Chanel - Costume Designer, Henri Cartier-Bresson - First Assistant Director, André Zwoboda - First Assistant Director, Carl Koch - First Assistant Director, Jean Renoir - Director, Marguerite Renoir - Editor, Camille François - Composer (Music Score), Earl Rose - Composer (Music Score), Vincent Scotto - Composer (Music Score), Salabert - Composer (Music Score), Monsigny - Composer (Music Score), G. Claret - Composer (Music Score), Desormes Delonnel-Garnier - Composer (Music Score), Roger Desormieres - Composer (Music Score), Joseph Kosma - Musical Direction/Supervision, Roger Desormieres - Musical Direction/Supervision, Max Douy - Production Designer, Eugène Lourié - Production Designer, Jean Bachelet - Cinematographer, Claude Renoir, Sr. - Producer, Max Douy - Set Designer, Eugène Lourié - Set Designer, Joseph DeBretagne - Sound/Sound Designer, Camille François - Screenwriter, André Zwoboda - Screenwriter, Jean Renoir - Screenwriter, Carl Koch - Screenwriter, Fryderyc Chopin - Featured Music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Featured Music, Camille Saint-Saëns - Featured Music
The Rules of the Game (original French title: La Règle du jeu, "the rule of the game") is a 1939film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II. Renoir's film is in part an adaptation of Alfred de Musset'sLes Caprices de Marianne, a popular 19th-century comedy of manners; Renoir takes the film far beyond the pleasantries of a typical comedy of manners, creating instead a biting and tragic satire that captured the frenetic emotions of France on the cusp of World War II.
The Rules of the Game is often cited as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. A poll of critics from the British Film Institute ranked The Rules of the Game as the third greatest film ever, placing behind Citizen Kane and Vertigo.[1]
The film begins with the aviator André Jurieux landing at Le Bourget Airfield just outside Paris, France. He is greeted by his friend, Octave, who reveals that Christine, the woman André loves, has not come to the airfield to greet him. André is heartbroken. When a radio reporter comes to broadcast his first words upon landing, he explains his sorrow and denounces the woman who has spurned him. Christine, an Austrian, is listening to the broadcast from her apartment in Paris as she is attended by her maid, Lisette. Christine has been married to Robert de la Chesnaye for three years. Lisette has been married to Schumacher, the gamekeeper at the country estate, for two years, but she is more devoted to Madame Christine. Christine's past relationship with André is openly known by her husband, her maid, and their friend Octave. After Christine and Robert playfully discuss André's emotional display and pledge devotion to one another, Robert excuses himself to make a phone call. He arranges to meet Geneviève, his mistress, the next morning.
At Geneviève's apartment, Robert announces he must end their relationship, but invites her to join them for a weekend retreat to Robert and Christine's country estate, La Colinière, in Sologne. Later, Octave induces Robert to invite André to the country as well. They joke that André and Geneviève will pair off and solve everyone's problems. At the estate, Schumacher is policing the grounds, trying to get rid of rabbits. Marceau, a poacher, sneaks onto the grounds to retrieve a rabbit caught in one of his snares. Before he can get away, Schumacher catches him and begins to march him off the property when Robert demands to know what is going on. Marceau explains that he can catch rabbits, and Robert offers him a job as a servant. Once inside the house, Marceau flirts with Schumacher's wife, Lisette.
At a masquerade ball, various romantic liaisons are made. In the estate's dark, secluded greenhouse, Octave declares that he, too, loves Christine and they impulsively decide to run away together. Schumacher and Marceau, who have both been expelled from the estate after a fight, observe the greenhouse scene and mistake Christine for Schumacher's wife, Lisette, because Christine is wearing Lisette's cape and hood. Octave momentarily returns to the house and, while there, Lisette talks him out of running off with Christine. Consequently, he sends André to meet Christine. When André reaches the greenhouse, Schumacher mistakes him for Octave, who he believes is going to steal his wife. He shoots and kills André, which Robert subsequently explains to his guests as an "accident".
Reception
The film was initially condemned for its satire on the French upper classes and was greeted with derision by a Parisian crowd on its première. The upper class is depicted in this film as capricious and self-indulgent, with little regard for the consequences of their actions. The French government banned it,[2] but after the War it has come to be seen by many film critics and directors as one of the greatest films of all time.[3] Critics placing it at the top of their lists include Nick Roddick,[4]Paul Schrader,[5] and Bertrand Tavernier.[6]
Edit after the Premiere and restoration in 1959
Renoir was deeply hurt by the initial reception and edited the movie from 113 minutes to 80 soon after the premiere. He reduced the role of Octave, which he played, including Octave's brief infatuation with Christine during the ending. The omission of this complication during the ending gave rise to the notion of a "second ending". The film was restored to 106 minutes in 1959 with Renoir's approval and advice. One scene not located was Lisette talking about affairs among the maid staff.
Style
The Rules of the Game is noted for its use of deep focus so that events going on in the background are as important as those in the foreground. In a 1954 interview with Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut, reprinted in Jean Renoir: Interviews, Renoir said "Working on the script inspired me to make a break and perhaps get away from naturalism completely, to try to touch on a more classical, more poetic genre." He admitted that he wrote and rewrote it several times, often abandoning his original intentions altogether upon interaction with the actors having witnessed reactions that he hadn't foreseen. As a director he sought to "get closer to the way in which characters can adapt to their theories in real life while being subjected to life’s many obstacles that keep us from being theoretical and from remaining theoretical".[citation needed]
The film's style has had an impact on numerous filmmakers. One example is Robert Altman, whose Gosford Park copies many of Rules of the Game's plot elements (a story of aristocrats in the country, aristocrats and their servants, murder) and pays homage with a direct reference to the infamous hunting scene, or "la chasse", in which no one moves but the help.
^ John Kobal, John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Films. New York: New American Library (1988): 11. "The chauvinistic French public hated the thought of French aristocrats with Jewish parents and German wives. ... Attempts were made to burn down the cinema where it was screened, and it was finally banned. The Nazis maintained the ban."
^ (Kobal, 1988): 10 - 11. Kobal's list, culled from lists by more than eighty critics, places this film at No. 2, after Citizen Kane.
